This blog consists of comments from my real blog, http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/, which I don't want to publish there.
Plus some other stuff convenient to place here.
And its becoming a convenient place for me to dump my comments on other blogs so I can find them again.

FYI, I have studied the IPCC AR's in great detail and this is why I know for a fact that they are wrong. The mechanism established by the IPCC to determine the sensitivity is seriously flawed. We can start with the ambiguity in defining forcing, where 1 W/m^2 of post albedo incremental solar input power is considered 1 W/m^2 of forcing, while a 1 W/m^2 instantaneous increase in surface emissions absorbed by the atmosphere is also considered forcing. The later assumes that all power absorbed by the atmosphere is returned to the surface to warm it, as the an entire W/m^2 of solar forcing does, while the data clearly tells us that about half of atmospheric absorption by GHG's and clouds ultimately escapes into space and has no warming effect on the surface. Otherwise, clouds would not emit any power into space.

At the very least, you must concede that the sensitivity of an ideal black/gray body is given by the slope of the SB relationship, which is quantified as 1/(4*e*o*T^3), where e is the emissivity (.62 for a gray body representation of Earth and 1.0 for an ideal black body), o is the SB constant and T is the temperature of that body. To achieve a sensitivity of 0.8C per W/m^2, e must be only 0.23. Given planet emissions of 239 W/m^2, this requires the surface to be emitting over 1039 W/m^2 of Planck radiation which corresponds to a temperature close to the boiling point of water. Obviously, this is not the case, so the only other possibility is that the T^3 dependence of sensitivity on T must be about T^3.23 since e and o are otherwise known.

Please answer this question:What physics do you propose can change the dependency of the sensitivity on temperature from T^3 to T^3.23, bearing in mind that this also requires that the radiant emissions of the surface go as T^4.23, rather than the T^4 otherwise dictated by the laws of physics? Please be specific and cite the precise physical law or laws. Arguments to authority are insufficient to establish this much deviation from first principles physics which is basically all you have done in #68 and others.

I understand the basics just fine. One of the basic laws of physics is that the Stefan-Boltzmann LAW is immutable. Consensus climate science obsesses over superfluous complexity which gets in the way of understanding that the only effects this complexity can have is to 1) vary the effective emissivity (currently 0.62) and 2) vary the albedo (currently 0.30). The SB sensitivity (what you seem to refer to as the Planck sensitivity) is completely deterministic and a function of temperature and emissivity given by, 1/(4*o*e*T^3), where 'o' is the SB constant (5.67E-8 W/m^2 per K^4) and 'e' is the equivalent emissivity (measured to be 0.62).

As an exercise, you should try to find some combination of albedo and emissivity that results in the claimed sensitivity. Such a combination that fits the data simply doesn't exist unless the surface temperature is only 176K or the effective emissivity is only about 0.23, neither of which is consistent with the data.

Another exercise you can do is start with an ideal gray body whose emissivity is 0.62 (which maps to the data extraordinarily well) and morph it in a way that the power to temperature relationship is as measured while the sensitivity is as high as claimed. Again, you will never be able to do this because the claimed sensitivity is impossibly high.

The idea that the SB law is mutable arises from Schlesinger's broken feedback analysis where he incorrectly positions the SB law as the open loop gain in order to convert surface emissions (the power output of the modeled system) into a temperature output and presumes that positive feedback to result in a temperature dependence slower than T^4 and negative feedback makes the temperature dependence faster than T^4. This is absolutely incorrect and the only effects feedback, the lapse rate and any other climate system attribute can have is to increase or decrease the effective emissivity or albedo while the T^4 relationship remains intact.

Unless you can show first principles physics that overrides the T^4 relationship between power density and temperature, every argument you make is unsupportable by the laws of physics.

Cutting comments that are demonstrably true just because you don't like the consequence is completely unprofessional. It tells me that the truth is so scary to you that you can't help but deny it. The reason it's so scary is because the political implications are so incredibly devastating to the Democratic party and anyone with strong ties to the left simply can't handle the truth, especially those on the green bandwagon. Scientists should rise above this and decouple politics from the consequences of the scientific method. Unfortunately, climate science doesn't accept the results of the scientific method when they dispute the narrative.

The consensus denies the applicability of the SB LAW to the radiative balance of the planet, denies the applicability of COE relative to available feedback power and denies the Second Law of Thermodynamics relative to the net effect of the planet's water evaporation/condensation driven heat engine that manifests weather. Moreover; the consensus denies the obvious conflict of interest at the IPCC which became the arbiter of what is and what is not climate science. Meanwhile they call people like me deniers, yet can't cite a single law of physics that we are supposed to be denying. Apparently, the consensus does not understand the difference between denial and dispute. I certainly dispute the conclusions of the IPCC, especially the high sensitivity it claims, but I deny no physical laws.

At this point you have two options.

1) You can remain part of the problem and be crushed as the house of cards you call climate science collapses around you.

2) You can rise above the politics, come to grips with the actual science, enable a constructive discussion and be a hero by mitigating the political damage of the truth to your political party.

Unfortunately, I suspect you will choose option 1) and will bet any amount of money that you will eventually wish you chose otherwise. If you should choose option 2) I will be more than happy to help you.

Cruz may not be able to articulate what he believes about climate science to your satisfaction, but I know full well the position of the witnesses he relied on in his Senate hearing and can infer his true position from what his expert witnesses testified.

For the record, I don't think Cruz would make the best President among the various contenders and that there are others who could bring the sides of the politics closer together, although there are also others who are even more politically polarizing then he is. Do you really think the DNC would allow a committed socialist like Sanders to be the nominee, even if Clinton is indicted? The super delegates will surely draft someone else instead.

The C in CAGW stands for Castrophic AGW whose over stated claims are speculatively harsh enough to justify the IPCC's agenda of promoting climate reparations as the solution to the otherwise demonstrably insignificant warming consequential to CO2 emissions. What insanity drove us to allow the IPCC to become the arbiter of what is and what is not climate science as they became the authority to which your sides predictable arguments to authority refer to?

This conflict of interest is stunningly obvious and what's even more stunning is that consensus climate science fails to recognize that a conflict of interest even exists. This is the manifestation of living in a bubble of misinformation whose eminent collapse is beyond the perception of those within the bubble.

The 3.3 W/m^2 of feedback power comes from COE. If 1 W/m^2 of forcing raises the average surface temperature of 287.5K up to 288.3 (0.8C rise), the average surface emissions must increase by 4.3 W/m^2 since in LTE, the surface must be receiving as much power as it's emitting. If 1 W/m^2 comes from the initial forcing, the remaining 3.3 must come from the feedback. You can redefine this in terms of an equivalent temperature change per W/m^2 since the Stefan-Boltzmann LAW trivially relates EQUIVALENT temperature to TOTAL power, but this doesn't change the required behavior in the power domain.

Expressing sensitivity and feedback with dimensional values obfuscates the underlying requirements, Bode prescribes gain (where climate science calls the incremental gain the sensitivity) as ratios of quantities with common dimensions (volts per volt, W per W, W/m^2 per W/m^2), sensitivity as the ratios of a proportional change in gain per change in some parameter and feedback as the fraction of the output added to the input before being applied to the gain element, where the input and output have the same dimensions.

In Schlesinger's paper, he converts between temperature and power with an unspecified function and its inverse, which in fact is just the Stefan-Boltzmann LAW.

I should note that in Hansen's original feedback paper (which Schlesinger 'corrected'), Hansen had the units of feedback and gain properly ascribed. He assumed unit open loop gain and mislabeled the closed look gain and feedback fraction, which Schlesinger 'corrected' by adding more errors.

The climate system can never experience run away feedback unless there's an implicit infinite source of power driving the modeled gain element. Otherwise, the maximum gain is limited to only 2 W^2 of output emissions per W/m^2 of input forcing, which itself is less than the IPCC lower bound of 2.2 W/m^2 per W/m^2 of forcing (0.4C per W/m^2).

Venus is not a case of runaway GHG, but one of runaway clouds, where its the clouds that are in direct equilibrium with the Sun., The surface temperature follows as the lapse rate of its dense CO2 atmosphere dictates relative to the equilibrium temperature of the clouds. Why do you think gas giants get hotter as you get deeper into their atmosphere? Venus is just a much smaller scale version of a gas giant whose CO2 atmosphere weighs about as much as Earth's H2O oceans.Comment:You said, "Water vapour is positive, clouds are probably positive, "

Water can only be considered by its end to end effect, which includes latent heat, GHG effects and clouds. Weather is a heat engine whose source of heat is the surface. The end to end effect of water is best illustrated by a Hurricane which leaves a path of cold water in its wake. As the maximally efficient version of the heat engine driving weather, its clear that the end to end effect of water feedback is negative. The Second Law has something to say about this as well, which is that a heat engine can not warm its source of heat.

I'm also well aware of the consensus terminology regarding sensitivity and feedback and the mis application of terms is part of the problem since consequences are presumed based on the meanings of the terms per Bode.